Almost every designer makes a quick appearance at the end of his or her show. Philipp Plein opened his by taking center stage and making an announcement: “I’m just a dream chaser. I believe in my dreams until they come true,” he told his audience—which included Madonna, Kylie Jenner, Tiffany Trump, and Fat Joe—in the lobby of the New York Public Library at Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street. Mr. Plein dreams big. His shows take the vehicle of spectacle and soup it up past the point of reason. Past presentations—until this point recently in Milan—have involved monster trucks and Jet Skis. And so his American Fashion Week debut would be no exception. “Let’s make New York Fashion Week great again,” is his rallying cry.

“I did the biggest production ever, the biggest production you can even imagine, in Milan. I did it all,” he said backstage before the show, between guzzles of Red Bull. “At the end of the day, this is a new challenge. I needed a new challenge. This is the right time. America is a very spoiled market, a very difficult market. It’s still one of the biggest economies in the world and we can’t ignore it.” An Elvis impersonator brushed by us, and a crowd of photographers moved to shoot the New England Patriots’s Danny Amendola, socialite Sofia Richie, rapper Desiigner, and onetime “hot felon” Jeremy Meeks, all of whom walked in the show.